Mercy

Chapter Sixteen

The wind was blowing gently at the top of the penthouse apartment and Kara landed lightly on the balcony. She quickly scanned the house for Lena and saw she was in her bedroom and walked over to the door and knocked on the glass. She heard Lena's surprise at the sound and her heart rate started to climb.

Hearing her footsteps, Kara pulled away from the door and looked out over the city. Lena really had a wonderful view.

"Why am I not surprised," Lena drawled and Kara turned to face her and felt her face turn the color of her suit. Lena had obviously just had a shower; she was wrapped in a towel, had a plastic bag over her cast, and her hair had caught drops of water. Kara swallowed. Loudly. And quickly averted her eyes, and then closed them, maybe looking down wasn't a good idea. Lena's legs were looong. Like really long. Her stomach flipped over.

"Let me put something on," she said and ducked back inside and Kara sped to the barrier and leaned over it, not listening in for the drop of the towel behind her, nope, not her.

"Why are you here?" Lena asked and she sounded tired and Kara turned to face her fully. She was wearing a silk thigh high nightgown which some ignorant person would probably call a Kimono. It was a lovely shade of dark, dark blue and sparkled in the light and it reminded Kara of the stars.

"I wanted to apologize for earlier," Kara said, straight off the bat, wanting to lower Lena's hostility, which, admittedly, was deserved. Lena relaxed a hair.

"I didn't give you a chance to properly explain, and I think I need to," Kara tilted her head and leaned her back against the rail. "Would you like to tell me? I'm willing to listen this time."

Lena took a deep breath, was twisting in pain and let it out in a rush and moved over to one of her couches and sat. Her hemline rode up, not that Kara was looking, no sir're.

"I meant what I said earlier," Lena said as she settled further into the cushions and directed Kara to sit opposite her with a lazy tilt of her head. Her hair was tumbling around her shoulders and pieces of it were caught by the wind which tugged on it playfully. "About needing weapons capable of killing aliens."

Kara flopped on the couch with a huff and curled her legs up under her and leaned her head on her hand and looked over at Lena.

She was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts and then spoke.

"Did your parents— did Superman's parents —know you would get powers when they sent you both to Earth? Did they know that here you would be a God?" Lena asked suddenly and Kara had to blink, even though she was expecting a line of inquiry of the sort from her talk with Lena as Kara Danvers.

"Krypton was about to explode," she said softly. "I don't know if they thought about that, they just wanted us safe, I guess."

Lena nodded. "I can understand the desire, but they gambled with an entire planet, countless species, on you and your cousin not turning into dictators. You can at least understand the concern of the average citizen. You can fly, can't be killed by our most sophisticated weaponry, are faster than anything on Earth, can shoot lasers out of your eyes, and are stronger than a hundred of us could ever hope to be combined."

Kara fought down her urge to respond like she normally would and instead mulled over Lena's words.

"Kal and I only want to protect the earth, it's our home now. We don't want to lose another one," she confessed quietly, the weight of her culture resting on her shoulders and she swallowed the tightness in her throat.

"You don't want to lose another home," Lena said quietly and when she looked up to see her, green eyes were intense as they observed her. "Earth is and has always been Cla— Kal-El's home." The thud of her heart gave away her almost slip and Kara stiffened and locked her gaze with Lena's. She was about to say, Clark, she knew it.